


A Last Smile

by Ashesintheair



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 15:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3295628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashesintheair/pseuds/Ashesintheair





	A Last Smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tywinning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/gifts).



It was past midnight when Jaime started to hallucinate. At least, that’s what he took it for, to begin with. He had taken a walk about the Sept - not what one was supposed to do in a vigil but the statue of the Father had yet to step down and admonish him for it. His joints had seized and a circuit of the Sept had helped. He had turned to walk back along the east wall when he saw it.  


He rubbed at his eyes with a weary hand. The candlelight seemed to drift and travel around the bier. It stopped for a moment above Tywin’s face and that’s when he began to suspect he had fallen asleep on his feet.  


The light became a face, a hand, a body.  


Jaime froze, unsure now of reality but unwilling to break the moment. Whatever veil had parted, he would drink in any visions of his mother that it would allow.  


Joanna Lannister eschewed traditional ghostly white for soft gold. Her hair - always perfectly dressed in life as the Lady of Casterly Rock - was unbound, a gentle halo. Her skirt and hair shifted as if a light wind stirred them, though the air of the Sept was still.  


The shade leaned over the face of the late Lord Tywin. Her hands ghosted over his shoulders as her eyes searched his face.  


A smile lit her face, one that Jaime remembered so well. Joy and love, but the hard edge of victory beneath it - the smile of a lioness.  


Her fingers touched her husband’s cheeks and her lips moved as she whispered something to the corpse.  
Jaime’s breath hissed between his teeth. He could have sworn that his father smiled. It was simply the terrible rictus of the dead, he told himself. Nothing more.  


The intake of breath had been enough to break the spell. Joanna Lannister looked up, straight into the eyes of her son.  


She smiled and it felt like he was a boy again.  


The light of her blossomed until it filled his vision.  


He was left alone in the dim light of the Sept. His footsteps echoed around the empty space. The candlelight was resolutely still.  


Jaime looked at the body of his father and all he could see was the smile that had illuminated his face for that moment when Joanna had whispered to him. He couldn’t help but wonder what she had said.


End file.
